Week 1

Katrina Asuncion
Section 1

In Fight the Tower, Professor Valverde elucidates the numerous struggles faced by women of color in academia by relating her personal experience of gaining tenure to the institutional flaws in academia that hinder the success of women of color. Professor Valverde recounts her scarring experience in her fight for tenure, in which she faced abuse from her peers and ultimately lost her child in a miscarriage from the stress and trauma of the situation. Professor Valverde's fight for tenure demonstrates the immensely detrimental nature of the neoliberalism in our universities. The rise of neoliberalism in education since the 1980s has led to budget cuts, corporatization, and university administrators that come from private industries with little to no education background. These institutional flaws in our education system can also be evinced by our federal government as well, with the appointment of Betsy DeVos as our current Secretary of Education, a woman with zero background in public education. The focus on profit and corporatization in education harms all involved in public education, "[transforming] students into customers, teachers into workers, and administrators into CEOs" (Valverde 374). This makes tenure extremely important for professors, as professors that do not receive tenure are treated like a "dispensable labor force" that do not receive benefits and earn lower wages compared to professors with tenure (Valverde 374). This in turn harms women of color in academia especially, as they are often "overlooked" for tenure and are "frequent targets for dismissal"  in the institutional, neoliberal landscape of university politics (Valverde 376).  I was very surprised when reading about the relations within Professor Valverde's department and the lack of support she received from some of her peers when she applied for tenure. The alarming struggles women of color in academia face reveal that the institutional flaws at our universities pose issues not only for students of color, but for academics of color as well.

Question: Is it possible to eventually dismantle the neoliberalism and corporatization present in our universities, or must academics of color and students of color simply learn to navigate through its difficulties?

References
1. Valverde, K. (2013). Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia. Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 12(2).
2. Beiler, A. (2013, May 16). The Neoliberal University: Origins and Alternatives. [Web log post]. Retrieved April 5, 2017 from, http://andreasbeiler.blogspot.com